2006—Nine years after she was hit by a lampost knocked over by a Macy’s parade balloon, Kathleen Caronna’s Manhattan apartment burns after being struck by Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle’s Cirrus airplane.
2003—Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez, 33, gives Yankee coach Don Zimmer a shove, knocking the 72-year old Zimmer to the ground.
2002—The U.S. Senate approves the error made yesterday by the House.
1991—Anita Hill testifies before Congress that she was sexually harassed by her former boss, Supreme Court Justice-to-be Clarence Thomas.
1973—Henry Kissinger tells Brent Scowcroft that President Nixon can’t take a call from the British Prime Minister because he’s too “loaded.”
1963—NSAM 263 lays out JFK’s (secret) plan: get out of Vietnam. Six weeks later he and his plan are dead.
1960—At the podium, in the UN, Nikita Khrushchev drives his point home with a shoe.
1954—The French driven out, the Viet Minh take over North Vietnam.
1945—Mao’s Red Army goes to war against Chiang Kai-Shek’s kleptocracy.
1937—Physicians warn the AMA that Massengil’s new miracle drug “Elixir Sulfanilamide” is causing their patients to die in agony.
1809—At Grinder’s Stand, a tavern, Meriwether Lewis cuts his wrists and shoots himself twice—according to the official version of events.